I have a few questions for you all. What do the various sundry of you out
there believe about the validity of near-death experiences? Has anyone on
the list experienced one or know a close family member of friend who has?
Feel free to contact me privately if you'd prefer. I have been researching
them on the net merely out of curiousity and interest, and am struck by the
similarity of nearly every NDE-er seeing bright light and often a "mosaic"
or kaleidoscope of colors.

But what really blew me away was when I re-read in Annie Dillard's
Pulitzer-prize winning "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek" about experiments where
doctors gave sight (via operation) to certain people who had been blind
since birth (cataracts), and recorded what these people saw through their
"new eyes". What they describe is almost exactly the same as what people
who experience NDE see. (Dillard did not make this comparison - I did). The
previously-blind saw bright lights, myriad colors and no concept of
3-dimensions/space. This is presumably also similar to what we see at
birth. That is what struck me. If this NDE is truly the passage from earth
to heaven, is it like we are experiencing another "birth"? Wouldn't it be
just like God to give us birth as an on-earth analogy to our other passage?

Perhaps you think it's all hogwash? I don't know. I am just saying what I
read & what I thought as I did. I'm very curious to hear others' thoughts.